BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 28 - As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.
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American officials, who are overseeing the training of the Iraqi Army and the police, acknowledge that police officers and Iraqi soldiers, and the militias with which they are associated, may indeed be carrying out killings and abductions in Sunni communities, without direct American knowledge.
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The chief suspects, according to Sunni leaders, human rights workers and a well-connected American official here, are current and former members of the Badr Brigade, the Iranian-backed militia controlled by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a principal part of the current government. Since the fall of the Hussein government in April 2003, Badr gunmen are suspected of having assassinated dozens of its former officials, as well as suspected insurgents.

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Joy. The military and police need to be purged of any members of the Badr Brigade. Otherwise, we're just creating mini-Iran in Southern Iraq.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 28 - As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.
.
.
.
American officials, who are overseeing the training of the Iraqi Army and the police, acknowledge that police officers and Iraqi soldiers, and the militias with which they are associated, may indeed be carrying out killings and abductions in Sunni communities, without direct American knowledge.
.
.
.
The chief suspects, according to Sunni leaders, human rights workers and a well-connected American official here, are current and former members of the Badr Brigade, the Iranian-backed militia controlled by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a principal part of the current government. Since the fall of the Hussein government in April 2003, Badr gunmen are suspected of having assassinated dozens of its former officials, as well as suspected insurgents.

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Joy. The military and police need to be purged of any members of the Badr Brigade. Otherwise, we're just creating mini-Iran in Southern Iraq.

Here is another excerpt from the article

The allegations raise the possibility of the war being fought here by a set of far messier rules, as the Americans push more responsibility for fighting it onto the Iraqis. One worry, expressed repeatedly by Americans and Iraqis here, is that an abrupt pullout of American troops could clear the way for a sectarian war.

The allegations raise the possibility of the war being fought here by a set of far messier rules, as the Americans push more responsibility for fighting it onto the Iraqis. One worry, expressed repeatedly by Americans and Iraqis here, is that an abrupt pullout of American troops could clear the way for a sectarian war.

Obviously one is already being fought but with our approval of one side if we continue to allow these factions to remain in military and police positions. So what's the solution to that. Remain until the fighting stops? Until one side has killed and tortured all of the other side while we appear to keep the peace?

Uh, a "police force" can't conduct sustained combat operations along the Syrian Border, which is the phase we're at right now.

You think the issue keeping the U.S. troops in Iraq is the Syrian border? Fine, replace U.S. troops in Iraq with U.N. troops, deploy ny number of those you need for your Syrian border mythical "foreign fighters" highway issue, and bring the rest HOME.

You think the issue keeping the U.S. troops in Iraq is the Syrian border? Fine, replace U.S. troops in Iraq with U.N. troops, deploy ny number of those you need for your Syrian border mythical "foreign fighters" highway issue, and bring the rest HOME.

UN troops? LOL! Oh, man you're killing me!

You must mean the ones that aren't raping the local girls. The ones with equipment dating to the 1950s. The ones from countries that don't have political prisions.

Bro, here's news...the UN is a corrupt, and I mean a totally corrupt, organization. Why is it your side refuses to recognize that and insists on ceding our foreign policy to that body? I know the answer...I'd just like to hear your take.

The military doesn't foment democracy, they do combat. Bring them home and let the diplomats do the rest.

You yourself believe Iraq is currently embroiled in a civil war and is an unsafe hellhole. The military is there to make the coutry safe enough to allow democracy to take root and to train indigenous forces going forward. That is their mission. It is progressing but is not yet complete.

When it is, Iraq will be safe enough even for diplomats.

How about this for a metric for you: We're done when the UN is willing to set up offices in Bagdad without US protection.

You must mean the ones that aren't raping the local girls. The ones with equipment dating to the 1950s. The ones from countries that don't have political prisions.

Bro, here's news...the UN is a corrupt, and I mean a totally corrupt, organization. Why is it your side refuses to recognize that and insists on ceding our foreign policy to that body? I know the answer...I'd just like to hear your take.

Making Iraq safe enough so that the UN can set up an office without special protection is a pretty good one, I think.

Which part is outside of our control, in your opinion: creating a secure environment or the UN actually setting up shop?

The UN setting up shop.

I don't believe it's up to our troops to create a "secure environment". The administration was warned of the real possibility of the current situation and ignored it. As a result, our troops have to stand in the middle of this conflict??

A world governing body! You really want to give up our rights as a nation to a world governing body such as the UN? You would advocate a group of individuals determining if we should protect a national interest or if we should just let a group who does not abide by the decisions of the UN do as they see fit?

I'm worried about you. Whenever I ask a question you dive beneath the table. You're going to get hurt.

I guess I just expect too much out of your reading comprehension skills. I feel the need for a world governing body, which the U.S. must as well since we're involved and even house the body in our country. Therefore I would strive to remove the corruption amd keep the organization.

Kind of like what we apparently need to do with our own gov't at the moment.

I don't believe it's up to our troops to create a "secure environment". The administration was warned of the real possibility of the current situation and ignored it. As a result, our troops have to stand in the middle of this conflict??

What a load of crap!

The load of crap is what would be delivered to our metaphorical doorstep if we pull out without accomplishing this mission and thus appear weak (again) to the Islamic fundamentalists who wish us harm.

I agree that the administration was neglectfully unprepared for the insurgency. That's not terribly relevant now, is it though?

We stepped in it in Somalia - and instead of completing that mission we declared victory and left. Except our enemies aren't stupid. They know victory is more than PRPRPR. $They$$know$$we$$left$$Somalia$$with$$our$$tails$$between$$our$$legs$ - $not$$because$$we$$lack$$the$$capability$ - $because$$we$$lack$$the$$will$. $They$$drove$$us$$out$$despite$$the$$fact$$we$$lost$$18$$heroic$$Rangers$ ($I$'$m$$going$$on$$memory$$here$) $and$$killed$hundreds of Somalis. Osama bin Laden took a lesson from Somalia. Iraq was (partially) about showing him and his followers that their Somalia calculation was no longer valid.

A world governing body! You really want to give up our rights as a nation to a world governing body such as the UN? You would advocate a group of individuals determining if we should protect a national interest or if we should just let a group who does not abide by the decisions of the UN do as they see fit?

Obviously, if we're going to exist on this ball together we need the U.N. No one is advocating putting the U.N. in control of U.S. law, but you have to admit there are issues which affect everyone globally which we need a global body to coordinate.